Intriguing news from from Popsci (The weblog of Popular Science magazine): A school in New York City has announced that its emerging curriculum will be based entirely around games and play.
The Manhattan-based NY City public school, called Quest to Learn (Q2L), boasts financial support from Parsons School of Design, MacArthur, Gates, and Intel, among others.
In one sample curriculum, students create a graphic novel based on the epic Babylonian poem “Gilgamesh,” record their understanding of ancient Mesopotamian culture though geographer and anthropologist journals, and play the strategic board game “Settlers of Catan.” Google Earth comes into play as a tool to explore the regions of ancient Mesopotamia.
Students may also play the evolution-inspired video game “Spore,” but they get equally serious time with digital tools ranging from Maya 3D modeling to Adobe Flash. If anything, Q2L students may emerge as some of the most digitally savvy pupils of their peer group.
At the end of the day, however, it is important to remember that this is a school that must abide by the rules of New York State: Q2L students will still face the The Regents Exams, the misguided “standards of learning” tests through which every NY student must suffer. Essentially, this is the equivalent of training a young woman to build, maintain, and fly her own jet aircraft — and then judging her success by asking her to attach a team of horses to a stagecoach.
See also: Metropolis Mag.
One Comment
Hah, excellent simile.